Anderson Cooper Came Out Of The Closet Just In Time To Get Publicly Cheated On

Oh no, you guys! Just a little over a month after Anderson Cooper came out of the closet, a paparazzo has taken some close up photos of his longtime boyfriend Benjamin Maisani kissing another dude. My heart, it breaks for him.

As you can see here, the photos show our silver fox's tanned, muscular, gay-bar-owning partner having a tender moment with a mystery lothario in what looks to be that gay cruising area of the park your mom warned you about in the '70s. This comes amid reports that Anderson's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, was encouraging the couple to get married and adopt her some goddamn grandchildren. What will become of the beautiful love they have built?!

But before you go sending Anderson a fruit basket, know that it's possible that Ben and Anderson have an open relationship, and fooling around with strangers is totally okay under specific circumstances. As much as Anderson Cooper seems like a poster child for the cuddly, wholesome, monogamous kind of lifestyle some are currently trying to set forth as the reason gays should be allowed to get married, there's a chance that he could, like many people (both gay and straight), have a modern, Dan Savage-esque approach to monogamy. I think a lot of people want to slot gay men into an either/or dichotomy between the “good” gay families who are just like straight families, only with two dads, and the bad, promiscuous gays who give each other blowjobs through glory holes. However, this fails to account for the fact that someone could be deeply committed to his partner but still allow for the occasional letting off of steam that comes with a random, meaningless hookup. One benefit to being marginalized from mainstream culture has been that many members of the LGBT community have been able to decide for themselves how to negotiate long term relationships, rather than mindlessly accepting perfect monogamy as the one-size-fits-all social norm that it is, and that's something straight people should learn from, not condemn.

Then again, it's totally possible that they do have a monogamous relationship and that Anderson is pretty pissed off right now. But for his sake, I hope that's not the case!